Ion beams can be used to induce patterned structures and unique topography at the nanoscale by means of sputtering and other surface-related processes. This approach can have significant implications to the design of nano structured surfaces used for cell engineering and cell biology.
Irradiation-driven systems have been explored in similar moderate energy regimes dominated by knock-on atom displacement regimes for semiconductor metallization microstructure control, artificial texturing of ceramics, engineering of nanostructured carbon, and compositional patterning of immiscible alloys. Such findings suggest that irradiation-driven self-organized structures can have critical effects on surface properties of low dimensional state structures.
However, irradiation-driven systems have been limited to the study of dissipative systems leading to permanent damage by operating in energy and flux regimes that limit self-organization of low-dimensional state structures. Despite the use of low-energy ion-beams, there remain difficulties with control of short and long-range ordering, surface chemistry and topographical control. In addition, despite numerous experiments and models that have investigated ioninduced surface nanopatterning; synthesis design for ion-induced biomaterials functionalization remains absent. Ion-induced strategies are only used for biocompatibility enhancement. One important limitation in current nanomanufacturing is its dependence on naturally self-ordered processes that balance kinetic and thermodynamic dissipative forces in the absence of irradiation techniques. This dependence leads to limited control of surface chemistry and functionalization. Furthermore top-bottom and bottom-up surface patterning is predominantly dependent on focused beam technology. One example is the use of electron and ion-beam nanolithography, which pose an order-of-magnitude limitations towards high-volume manufacturing.
Therefore, there is a need for a novel process that removes the aforementioned limitations toward high-volume manufacturing and which is scalable.